Abstract

This study proposes librarianship branding as a new strategy for the professionalization of librarianship and examines the influence of perceived library benefits on its outcomes among public library users. The study first defines the outcome factors, which consist of three factors: role-based image discrepancy, perception of librarians’ specialty, and social recognition. A survey of both users and librarians in Seoul and Gyeonggi provinces was conducted, with the librarians’ responses specifically used to generate the role-based image discrepancy factor. The findings revealed that perceived library benefits affected social recognition by mediating role-based image discrepancy and the perception of librarians’ specialty, both individually and sequentially. Particularly, role-based image discrepancy was identified as a key factor for successful librarianship branding, mediating a majority of the significant indirect effects from informational benefits. Accordingly, this study suggests that expanding direct information services is essential for librarians to effectively convey an appropriate role-based image to users. As a pioneering study that conceptualizes librarianship branding, this research is significant in presenting a new way for professionalization through benefit-driven library services.